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House of Fraser’s #Emojinal campaign: massive fail or marketing genius?

We may never be sure what compelled House of Fraser (HoF) to completely abandon its brand identity and tweet a Snapchat-style picture of John Terry wearing a cartoon crown and holding a balloon.

All we know is that it happened. It’s happening. And, despite what many people feared (or perhaps hoped), it’s not the work of hackers.

Somebody on House of Fraser’s social media team – perhaps a whole bunch of people – decided Kim Kardashian with an upside-down peach for buttocks was a sound way to market overpriced clothing to young people who can’t afford it anyway.

And it’s all in aid of HoF’s #Emojinal Valentine’s Day campaign. Get used to it, because it’s going to be running for another two weeks.

Some of the tweets…

This is the tweet that prompted somebody to ask whether HoF’s account had been hacked.

I get that it’s meant to be a joke, but it just comes across as kind of childish.

Again, not a problem in itself. I’m probably more childish than most actual children I know. But it just doesn’t seem right coming from HoF and could potentially alienate its core customers.

The timing is also somewhat ridiculous. It has been billed as a Valentine’s Day campaign (although you wouldn’t be able to tell just by looking at the tweet content), yet we’re still two weeks away from that event.

In the digital world things move fast. Really fast. To keep people engaged in a two-week-long Twitter campaign is almost unheard of.

I’d be amazed if people hadn’t already started ignoring it by the time you read this article.

The only thing I can think of is that HoF has several more tricks up its sleeve and this was just a way to draw initial attention to the campaign. For the brand’s sake I hope that’s the case.

How people have reacted

Here’s what people have been saying about the campaign on Twitter:

Wow. #Emojinal is a masterclass on how to ruin a century-old upscale brand with one terrible social media campaign.

Why HoF says it’s doing it

The brand told City A.M. it’s testing out some marketing ideas ahead of Valentine’s Day, allegedly inspired by some Bangor University research claiming 18-25 year olds find it easier to express emotions through emojis than traditional human contact.

Its Facebook and Twitter accounts will be overrun by this new house style for the next two weeks.

A spokesperson for the brand said:

We wanted to try something less traditional for Valentine’s Day this year in order to engage with a younger audience.

While its reasoning sounds plausible, I’m not convinced most 18-25 year olds shop in HoF. Perhaps I’m just out of touch.

Will HoF have the last laugh?

There is the age-old argument, of course, that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

Not everyone agrees with that sentiment, but if that was the thinking behind the campaign then it was unbelievably successful.

Can’t decide if #Emojinal is a PR nightmare or a piece of strange PR genius.

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